They climbed the ladder and found themselves in a big loft, half-full of straw.
“This’ll do us fine,” Don said.
He crossed over to the loft door, pushed it open a few inches and peered down into the brick stack. Two men, one with a lantern, were just below him. They were listening.
“Could have been a cat, papa,” the younger of the two said. “You know how Bruno is.” He bent to fondle the dog who wagged his tail violently.
The farmer muttered to himself, then shrugging his shoulders, he turned back towards the house.
“Leave the dog loose,” he said. “I’m not going to stay up all night just to please the police. What have they ever done for me?”
Both men reentered the house and closed the door. Don heard the bolts slam home, and, after a few minutes, the light in the upstairs room went out.
“That was smart of you, Harry,” he said going over to where Harry was already making himself comfortable in the straw.
“They’ve turned in now.”
Harry grinned.
“Wouldn’t mind turning in myself, boss. Want anything to eat?”
“Not now. Let’s get some sleep. We’ll probably have to stay here all tomorrow and get moving again tomorrow night,” Don said, relaxing back into the straw. “Once we get the otherside of Padova, and into the hills we can risk moving in daylight.”
Harry grunted.
“Anything you say, boss,” he said sleepily.
A few moments later he was snoring gently.
Don lay awake, thinking. They were a long, long way from London. They had two frontiers to cross. He had no doubt of the difficulties. They were only on the first leg of their journey and they were already being hunted by the police. He felt sure that Natzka wasn’t remaining idle. He and his organization would be working frantically to block the way out of Italy, and if he and Harry did succeed in getting out of Italy, they still had to cross France. It wasn’t going to be easy. It was going to be a skillful game of fox and geese; one false move, and they would be trapped.
Don woke with a start to find Harry bending over him, gently shaking his arm.
Bright sunlight filtered through the cracks in the weather shrunk timber of the barn. Don was immediately aware of sounds below, and he looked sharply at Harry.
“What’s cooking?”
“There’s a lorry just below us,” Harry whispered. “It’s going to Padova. They’re loading it with vegetables now. Think we can steal a ride?”
Don got to his feet, hurriedly dusted himself down, then crossed to the door of the loft, pushed it open an inch or so and looked down into the brickyard. Immediately below him was a big, ten-ton truck, half covered with a sunfaded green tarpaulin. In the lorry, piled high, were crates of cabbages. The elderly farmer and a young dark Italian who Don guessed was Vittore were talking to the lorry driver. As he watched, the three men moved off towards the farmhouse.
Don instantly made up his mind.
“Let’s go, Harry.”
They both put on their rucksacks and went back to the loft door. The lorry driver, the old farmer and Vittore had disappeared. Don pushed open the door and dropped on to the crates of cabbages. Working quickly he shifted some of the crates to make enough room for himself and Harry to sit. He looked up at Harry who was waiting.
“Okay.”
Harry balanced himself on the ledge of the loft door, closed the door, hung by his fingers until he had adjusted his balance, then dropped into the space Don had cleared. They sat down on the floor of the lorry and pulled the crates around them, forming a small square. They had barely completed their task before they heard voices.
“See you tomorrow,” the lorry driver called.
The old fanner wished him good journey, the lorry engine woke into life. The lorry jolted over the rough cart track to the main road.
Harry leaned his back against one of the crates and grinned at Don.
“If there’s one thing I hate more than another it’s eating cabbage, boss,” he said. “But from now on, I’ll live on the blessed stuff.”
“Are we going right into Padova or shall we drop off before we get there?” Don said, frowning. He took out his map and began to study it while Harry, leaning over his shoulder, breathed heavily down his neck. “We’ll drop off just outside Padova,” Don went on after he had examined the map. “We’ll make for Abano, which is in the hill district. From there we’ll walk to Barbano, and on to the main road to Vicenza. We can pick up the C.I.T. bus to Brescia if we are lucky, and from Brescia, we are within striking distance of Milan.”
“Always providing we don’t run into a snag,” Harry said.
“Yes.” Don tried to make himself more comfortable as the lorry jolted and rattled over the uneven road. “Even if we get a break and reach Milan, we have still to get on a plane. Well, let’s get to Milan before we worry about that. We can work out the difficulties when we come to them.”
For half an hour, they sat side by side in the swaying, jolting lorry as it rattled along towards Padova, then Don began to check the terrain against the details of his map.
“We shouldn’t be long now. In another ten minutes I reckon we should be in Padova.”
Harry began to shift the crates so that they could drop off the tailboard of the lorry.
The country was still depressingly fiat and exposed. In the far distance they could see peasants working in the fields.
“Once we leave this rattletrap,” Harry said, “we’ll stick out like a neon light on a foggy night”
“We can’t risk going straight into Padova. They’ll be on the lookout for us.” Don said, putting on his rucksack. He pointed to the row of distant hills. “If we can reach those without trouble, we should be okay, but we’ve got to get to them first.”
They were now sitting on the tailboard of the lorry, their legs hanging over the fast moving road.
“Ready, boss?” Harry asked.
Don nodded.
They twisted over, hung for a moment and dropped off.
As soon as they had regained their balance, they ran over to the stone wall, skirting the road. There, they were out of sight of the distant peasants.
Harry lit a cigarette while he studied the land that lay ahead of them.
“Can’t cross that lot without being seen,” he said.
“How long do you think it’ll take us to reach those hills?” Don asked.
“About an hour over this ground.”
Don looked at his wristwatch The time was twenty minutes past nine.
“Maybe we should have stayed in the barn, Harry. We’re right out in the open now.”
“There’s no one in sight except those peasants,” Harry returned, “and why should they bother about us? We’ve come thirty miles, and that’s something. I think it’s been worth the risk.”
“Yes. Well, come on, let’s go.”
They climbed the wall and set off across the field. The going was heavy and their brisk speed was reduced. They kept looking across the field at the peasants working -some five hundred yards or so away. None of them appeared to be looking in their direction. Some of them were digging sugar beet, others were lopping off the green heads of the beet with their big, curved knives, others were loading carts.
Don and Harry began to cross a wide stretch of undulating land of rough grass that led down into a sloping valley at the bottom of which were the first of the foothills, gradually leading to the big, brown and green hills that skirted the river Bacchiglione. They were halfway across this stretch of grassland when faintly in the distance they heard a shout.
“That’s done it!” Harry said, looking back over his shoulder.
Don looked back, too.
Against the skyline, three of the peasants were waving at them.
“Keep going,” Don said, lengthening his stride. “Run if they do.”
“What’s their idea, boss?”
“They’ve either been tipped off by the police or they’re Natzka’s men,” Don
said. “If we can get them away from the others, we can tackle them easily enough.”
Once again they looked back, then stopped short.
The three peasants had disappeared.
“Ah-uh,” Don said. “Looks like they’ve gone to collect their pals. Feel like a little run, Harry?”
They broke into an easy, steady trot; a trot that they both knew they could keep up for some time, and that took them over the ground at a pretty fair pace.
“We’ve got to get to the hills before the police get here,” Don said, breathing evenly.
He increased his pace, and together they ran down the sloping grassland to the distant hills.
They were both panting slightly as they climbed the stonewall at the bottom of the grassland, trotted across the rough road and climbed yet another stone wall. They paused to look back.
Spread out on the skyline were six men; three of them by their hats were peasants; the other three were bareheaded and too far away for Don to see who they could be.
“Here they come,” he said “Come on; let’s show them how to run!”
They set off at a fast pace. The going now was slightly uphill and it was a strain to keep up the pace, but they stuck to it, and it wasn’t until they had breasted the slope that they again looked back. The six men had broken formation. Some of them were still lumbering down the hill. Two had reached the stonewall and were clambering over it. Another was just beginning a staggering run up the slope, and even as they watched, he came to a halt while he struggled to get back his breath.
“Doesn’t look as if they’re in training, does it?” Harry grinned as Don swung around and began to run down the slope. They kept in step until they reached yet another stonewall; then Don came to an abrupt halt.
“The railway! I’d forgotten that.”
They looked down into the steep cutting at the single line track.
“Our luck!” Harry said, cocking his head on one side.
“There’s a train coming now.”
“Down we go,” Don said, and together they scrambled down the steep bank on to the line. There was a clump of shrubs not far down the line, and they ran, panting, towards it. They had barely reached it, and got behind it when the train came chugging along the track. It was a long, heavily-laden goods train, and not moving more than fifteen miles an hour.
“It’s a piece of cake,” Harry said. “Soon as the engine’s passed us, we step out and get aboard.”
At this moment the engine passed them. They could see the driver and the fireman in the cab. Then Harry caught hold of Don’s arm and shoved him out from behind the shrub. They waited on the track for the first wagons to pass, then when they spotted a low, open truck on which a brightly painted farm tractor was tied, they dashed forward, ran alongside for a couple of breathless seconds, then swung on board.
“Under cover,” Don gasped, and rolled under the tractor.
Harry followed him, and they kept flat while the train, slowly picking up speed, went rumbling and rattling through the cutting.
“They’ll have guessed we’re on board,” Don said, after he was satisfied that they were out of sight of their pursuers.
“They’ll get to a telephone and warn the station ahead of us.”
“They’ve got to reach a telephone first.”
“Not if those guys were police. They’ll have a car with a transmitter on board.” Don took out his map, studied it and put it back into his rucksack. “The next station up the line is Castelfranco. There’s another railway line that crosses it at that station and goes to Vincenza. If we can pick up a train on that line without being seen we’ll be doing well.”
“Have we far to go on this lot?”
“About ten miles. It’s better than walking.” Don produced a packet of sandwiches Cherry had provided. “We’d better eat while we can.”
“Blimey! I could work my way through an oxtail!” Harry said, sighing. He began to munch a sandwich. “What’ll we do when we get to Vincenza?”
“We’ll keep clear of the centre of the town. We want more food, and we must find out if we can pick up a night bus to Verona. If things look sticky, we’ll have to make for the hills again.”
“Anything you say,” Harry said, finishing his sandwich. “If we’re going to restock our larder, how about another sandwich now?”
* * *
The big cream and blue C.I.T. bus pulled up under the single dim light above the bus stop. Two peasants in their Sunday best, a tired, shabby-looking commercial traveller with two heavy suitcases and a woman with a bundle done up in a gaudy shawl left the bus shelter and moved over to the bus. There were only two passengers already in the bus, and both of them were women.
Don touched Harry’s arm and nodded. They walked briskly from behind the bus shelter and got on board. Don bought tickets for Verona. Then they settled down two seats behind the driver. The bus moved off, and Don and Harry exchanged relieved glances.
They had reached the outskirts of Vincenza soon after midday, and, having bought a small stock of food, they had spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in a small moviehouse.
No one had taken any notice of them, and when Don decided it must be dark enough to go out on the streets, they had checked the bus timetable and had found a bus was due to leave for Verona at nine-thirty.
“So far so good,” Don muttered to Harry. “When we get to Verona we might see if we can steal a car. I don’t think we have a hope of hiring one. If we can reach Brescia before daylight we really are making progress.”
“You wouldn’t take the car into Milan?” Harry asked.
Don shook his head.
“Before we get to Milan we have the autostrada to negotiate and that’s worrying me. We could avoid it, but it would mean going a long way out of our way.”
“What’s an autostrada, boss?”
“This particular one is the Milan-Brescia motor road with checkpoints at either end. You have to buy a ticket to use the road, and there are always police guards.”
“Best tiring would be to jump a lorry, and hole up as we did last time.”
“They’ll be on the lookout for us. They may even be searching lorries.”
“Maybe we’d better plan to take the longer way round.”
“When we’ve got the car we can decide that.”
It was a little after ten minutes past ten when the bus slowed down and pulled up outside the bus stop at Tavernelle. Although both Don and Harry were alert for trouble, it came so quickly they were both momentarily caught on the wrong foot. There was no light outside the bus stop, and looking through the window of the bus they could only see their own reflections from the light inside the bus. The bus door jerked open and a crash helmeted motorcycle cop blocked the doorway. He was a little man, his goggles up on his crash helmet, a carbine across the back of his shoulders, his right hand on the butt of an automatic in a holster at his waist.
His quick eyes swept over the passengers in the bus, then they concentrated on Don and Harry.
“That’s torn it,” Harry said out of the corner of his mouth without moving his lips.
The cop beckoned to them.
“Please step outside,” he said curtly.
Don looked at him blankly.
“Speaking to me?” he said in English.
“Outside, signore,” the cop said also in English.
“What’s the idea?”
The other passengers in the bus were staring. The driver had swung around and was looking uneasily at the cop.
“I wish to see your papers,” the cop went on to Don.
Don shrugged, got up, pulled his rucksack from the luggage rack and stepped into the gangway.
“Is this going to take long?” the bus driver asked. “I’m behind schedule now.”
“Do not wait for these two. You can go on,” the cop said.
The driver shrugged his shoulders and turned his back on the cop who stepped down from the bus and waited in the road.
&
nbsp; “We may have to take this guy,” Don murmured as he pretended to help Harry down with his rucksack. “Watch his gun hand.”
They climbed down into the road and were a little startled to find two other motorcycle cops, one of them with his carbine in his hand, waiting.
The bus driver slammed the door of the bus after them, engaged gear and drove away.
The first cop snapped on the headlights of his motorcycle, lighting up the road.
“Your papers, please, signore,” he said to Don.
As Don reached inside his windbreaker, he saw the second cop raise his carbine and point it at him. Don produced his passport and handed it to the cop. The cop glanced at it, nodded and held out his hand for Harry’s passport.
“Let him have it,” Don said.
Harry handed the passport over.
“You are both under arrest,” the cop said. “You will come with us.”
“What’s the charge?” Don asked mildly and he lifted his hat to scratch his head. It was a signal he had used before to warn Harry to be ready to start something. Harry reacted immediately. He was holding his heavy rucksack over his shoulder. He gave a sudden heave, and, using the rucksack like a sling, he flung it into the face of the cop with the gun. At the bottom of the rucksack was a pair of nail studded boots, and in spite of the leather and canvas covering of the rucksack the boots made a formidable weapon. The ironbound heels caught the cop on the bridge of his nose, stunning him. He dropped the carbine and fell forward on hands and knees.
The other two cops went for their automatics, but stopped short as Don showed them the gun that had jumped into his hand.
“Don’t move!” he rapped out.
Harry grabbed up the carbine and covered the fallen cop who was shaking his head and cursing.
“Turn around you two!” Don snapped.
The two cops turned round, and Don took away their automatics. He then unarmed the third cop who by now had got unsteadily to his feet. Working swiftly, Harry removed a sparking plug from one of the motorcycles, and pocketing it, he started up the other two cycles.
“Ready when you are, boss,” he said.
Don unloaded the three automatics and threw the clips away, then he dropped the automatics in the road. He went up to the first cop and dug him in the ribs with his gun.
1954 - Mission to Venice Page 15